Glencoe

Honestly, the sun always shines on the Glencoe Car Park Run.

Tuesday, 12 June 2012

Shooting An Elephant

Many years
ago George Orwell wrote an essay called Shooting an Elephant. It was an honest
account of how, during his time in Moulmein, Burma as a sub-divisional police
officer, he shot and killed a rampaging elephant because it was expected of
him. To not shoot the elephant would have shown him to be weak in the eyes of
the locals, many of whom despised the white Europeans in what Orwell describes
as an aimless, petty kind of way.

Being in a
position of authority made him an obvious target and he was baited whenever it
seemed safe to do so. One example he used to show this was after him being
tripped on the football field by a nimble Burman, the referee deliberately
looked the other way, much to the hilarity of the locals gathered for the game.
Ironically, he points out that the worst for dishing out abuse and jeers were
priests: Bhuddist priests.

The essay
was written at a time when Orwell was realising imperialism was an evil thing,
and something he no longer wanted any part of. He had witnessed the dirty work
of empire at close quarters. He wrote:

‘The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the
lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks
of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos – all these oppressed me with an
intolerable sense of guilt. But I could get nothing into perspective. I was
young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter
silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East. I did not even know
that the British Empire is dying

The British
Empire is, of course, long gone. Well, most of it has. Britain still clings to
a tiny group of islands in the South Atlantic that no-one really cares about,
other than the few inhabitants shipped there by the British long ago. ‘But the shipped-in
population wishes to remain British’ is the message sent out by the British government.
‘We must promote democracy and respect the will of the people.’ Mmm, yes, well.

There is another
part of the world the British still claim as part of their empire: an island to
the west of mainland Britain. An island called Ireland. To be fair to the
British, they don’t claim ownership of the whole island. Well, not anymore. They
only want a tiny chunk in the North East of Ireland. Apparently, it is the wish
of the shipped-in inhabitants of that tiny corner to remain British, and, of
course, the British must promote democracy and respect the will of the people.

We’ll come
back to the will of the people later, but for now let’s get back to Orwell and
his elephant dilemma.

It had already destroyed somebody's
bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock;
also it had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped out and
took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon it.

By the time
Orwell located the elephant it had also killed a man so he asked for a rifle in
order to defend himself should the elephant attack. When he first saw the
elephant he knew he ought not to shoot him. The elephant’s attack of ‘must’ had
passed and it was peacefully grazing in the Paddy fields. But the damage had
been done and an expectant crowd had gathered to witness the shooting. To not
pull the trigger now would have brought ridicule from the natives. And in the
world of empire, ridicule cannot be entertained.

Many years
later, here in Scotland, an elephant also suffered an attack of ‘must’. After
deciding it ‘must’ have everything its own way this beast went on the rampage
untouched for decades. Because it was the biggest animal in our little jungle
it believed it was untouchable and didn’t have to follow the same rules as
everyone else. It believed, and with some justification due to the way it was
treated differently by the establishment, that it represented the people.

But it only represented
a minority of the people.

Like the
people in the North East of Ireland this minority of people relish a sense of
supremacy and entitlement, and parochial sectarianism in the form of anti-Irish
Catholicism. They hark back to the days of the Indian Raj and a time when Britannia
ruled the waves while reigning over an empire on which the sun never set.

But those
days heady days of empire are long gone.

These people
are an embarrassment to a modern Scotland who views itself as a multicultural
society. This modern Scotland opens its arms to immigrants. refugees and asylum
seekers from all over the world. Not that these native white Anglo-Saxon people
of Scotland care. They don’t claim to be Scottish. They claim to be British.
British Unionists and proud.

Last week’s
jubilee celebrations allowed them to put up the bunting, sit at home with their
feet up and enjoy the pageantry, the live concert and the fireworks display
while thinking to themselves, ‘I am proud to be British.”

What they
don’t realise is Britain doesn’t want people like them either. What they also
didn’t realise was their elephant wasn’t untouchable. Much to their total
surprise and utter dismay the British establishment decided the time had come to
shoot their elephant.

On the 13th
February Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs pushed the elephant into a big hole
called administration.

Many
would-be heroes tried to save the elephant by getting it out of the big hole,
but their attempts were feeble and ultimately in vain.

Many
onlookers came from distant lands to view the elephant.

Some said it
was a shame to see such a powerful and dignified beast in such a sorry state.

Most said
the elephant was lucky to still be alive after the damage it had caused.

It became
obvious to the majority that the beast, although still capable of garnering
enough support to lash out with threats, was on its last legs and death was
inevitable.

Like all
wounded beasts with no hope of recovery the best and most humane course of
action would be to put the beast to sleep. In Orwell’s case he had to pump many
bullets into the elephant, and even then it still took an age to die.

He wrote:

When I pulled the trigger I did not hear
the bang or feel the kick – one never does when a shot goes home – but I heard
the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too
short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a
mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor
fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken,
shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had
paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time
– it might have been five seconds, I dare say – he sagged flabbily to his
knees.

Today Her
Majesty’s Revenue and Customs fired another bullet into the heart of Rangers
Football Club. It is not yet dead, but is on its knees.

The SPL
clubs will meet again shortly to decide whether or not a newco Rangers can
parachute straight into Scotland’s top league. A No vote will pump another
bullet into the old elephant but it still wouldn’t kill it.

The SFA
Appeals Panel will have the opportunity to pump the last bullet into the old
elephant. Having already opted out of that course of action they have been
forced, by Rangers’ own stupidity and reluctance to play by the rules, to
reconsider their position. Included in their short list of punishments to
choose from is expelling Rangers from football. They have it in their power to
kill the old elephant.

Will they
take their chance?

No, I don’t
think they will.

In a jungle
as small as Scottish football the old elephant is too big to die. Too many
scavengers and vultures rely on the old elephant for their own survival.

The old
elephant may be sick and apparently on its last legs, but there are too many people
out there wanting it to survive in one form or another. Whether it is other
clubs who need the money the old elephant generates, or sports journalists who
have acquired the taste of succulent lamb, or the self-proclaimed minority of delusional
people who think they are entitled to win everything by cheating and lying just
because they are…how do they put it…because they are the people.

At the end
of Orwell’s essay he pointed out how the opinions of fellow Europeans in Burma
differed as to whether or not he should’ve shot the elephant and wondered if
anyone realised that he only shot the elephant in order to not look a fool in
front of the natives.

I wonder
what his views would be on shooting the old elephant called Rangers.

Perhaps we
can surmise that, given the prize in his name for political writing was given
to an anonymous blogger who focused on how the old elephant and the media
worked together to carry out a major cover-up of the old elephant’s misdoings,
he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger one more time.